After reading the “visual rhetoric” section of Doug Eyman’s “Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, and Practice” (2015), I wasn’t immediately sure how to respond to it in this blog post. So, I took a break and grabbed some lunch to allow myself time to brainstorm. While I was eating, I decided to read A Series of Rooms by A.J. Barlowe. The chapter I last paused on began with about two pages of italicized writing. That made me think: “Huh, isn’t this technically visual rhetoric?” Well, it’s hard to say.
I think it matches quite a bit of the criteria to be visual rhetoric. The visual of the writing changing to italics led—or “persuaded”— me to think that I was either reading thoughts or memories. This was only possible because of the culture of story books, in which italicized texts symbolize that meaning. So, the visual successfully communicated something to me, seemingly fulfilling the requirements of visual rhetoric.
Where the issue comes in is when Eyman quotes Charles Hill and Marguerite Helmers from Defining Visual Rhetorics (2004). They say, “To others, it could include the study of the visual aspect of pretty much anything created by human hands—a building, a toaster, a written document, an article of clothing—making the study of “visual rhetoric” overlap greatly with the study of design.” So anything handmade by people supposedly treads into the territory of the “study of design.” They even specifically include written documents, which I would say books fall under.
At the same time, Eyman later brings up that “Visual rhetoric is often invoked in digital rhetoric studies when examining website interfaces.” He even includes Meredith Zoetewey’s (2010) research, which expands this field of study to the wireless, such as “mobile devices’ exteriors.” So, we acknowledged these things as visual rhetoric, even though we made them, as we did with written documents. In other words, all three of these things are designed by us. So, if the way a website or device presents itself counts, why shouldn’t a written document? Why should it fall under “the study of design”? Are we mischaracterizing website interfaces and the exterior of devices as visual rhetoric? I doubt it. Then what is the difference between it and the study of design, if there even is a difference? (This is a genuine question that’s eating away at me; someone please tell me.)
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